In modern textile yarn forming operations, it is well known that the quality of the yarn produced is dependent to a large extent on the condition of the ambient air in which the yarn is formed. For example, in textile yarn spinning machines, both open end and ring spinning machines, the humidity and temperature of the ambient air must be carefully controlled within predetermined limits to improve the quality of the yarn and reduce the tendency of the yarn to break in subsequent processing steps such as knitting and weaving operation.
One conventional method of dealing with this problem is to carefully monitor and control the temperature and humidity of the air that is circulated through the entire area in which the textile equipment is operating, such as a spinning room in which a large number of spinning machines are operating. While this method of circulating conditioned air serves to improve the quality of the yarn, it is relatively inefficient because the entire volume of air in a large room must pass through air conditioning equipment having high energy operating demands.
It is also known to introduce the conditioned air at a point beneath a weaving machine rather than generally to the weaving room itself. For example, in Bachmann U.S. Pat. No. 4,570,682, conditioned air is introduced into the weaving room through small apertures so that thin and gentle jets of conditioned air are freely directed into the space beneath the weaving machines and in Jassniker U.S. Pat. No. 4,265,278, conditioned air is introduced into the weaving room through a first opening in a duct extending along the floor of the weaving room and through a second duct opening directing the conditioned air into the interior of the weaving machine below the weaving plane. This patent also indicates that some of conditioned air may be withdrawn through a return duct disposed within the weaving machine itself or through an additional conditioning faculty disposed in the ceiling of the weaving room.
However, spinning machines as compared to weaving machines, present a somewhat different problem, namely, dissipating the substantial quantity of heat that is generated by the spinning apparatus itself. Thus, in open end spinning machines, a rapidly rotatable rotor housed in a spin box is provided, and a continuous length of fiber is introduced and broken down into individual fibers so that the fibers can be formed into a length of yarn by the rotor, and the yarn is then directed to a cone or spool for collection thereon. As open end spinning machine technology advances, the rotating speed of the rotor increases and the frictional and operational heat generated thereby also increases. Similarly, in ring spinning machines, the increasing rotational speeds of the spindles and the traveler generate increased heat which creates problems if it is not properly dealt with.